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Wednesday, December 19, 2007

How did your family handle Christmas Shopping? Did anyone finish early or did anyone start on Christmas Eve?

Most of the Christmas shopping done when I was a girl was via Sears, Roebucks & Co., Montgomery Wards, or occaisionally, Jafco. We always got catalogs for those companies, and my favorite were the Christmas Wish Books. I loved all the dolls and accessories: clothes and bottles, strollers and carriages, cribs, high chairs, clothes.

I suppose that my dad probably bought Mom her Christmas gifts whenever he had to go out of town on business trips for The Salvation Army.

When we moved to Washington, we still used catalogs a lot. In addition to the others, we also had J.C. Penney. Both Sears and Penney had stores in Colville, although the Sears store was more of a delivery and pickup location for the larger store in Spokane.

I always envied the two girls that appeared on the front of the Jafco Christmas catalogs; they were the granddaughters of the CEO, and it always looked like they got everything they wanted for Christmas!

Today, I'm not a big shopper. I don't like malls and crowded stores. My kids can attest that I get very crabby if I have to shop for long (I don't even like grocery shopping!). I try to do a lot of online shopping, and then get in and out of stores with a pre-made list ahead of time. Still, it seems like every year there's always one or two items we end up having to purchase on Christmas Eve!

This post is a part of the "Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories" meme created by Thomas and Jasia. You, too, can write your own Christmas memories, either for your personal journal or blog. Click on their names for the list of topics. To see what others have written, go here.